Dragon's Prophet

Sony Online Entertainment Releases The Dragons This September

SOE is prepping to release Dragon's Prophet – a new free-to-play MMO from developer Runewaker Entertainment – this fall.

Set in a fantasy world where human warriors fight alongside dragons, Dragon's Prophet doesn't sound wholly original, but the free-to-play price is right, so we'll see what we think when the game comes out in North America and Europe on September 18.

"Dragon's Prophet has brought together what every fantasy-MMO player looks for in a new game: intense, action-based combat, a compelling end-game siege system, and more dragons than any other MMO to play and interact with like never before," says President of Sony Online Entertainment John Smedley. "Open Beta continues to provide us with valuable player feedback, and working closely with Runewaker and Infernum, we have already made major strides in improving the game's performance. We will continue to integrate feedback and make refinements to the game to ensure that Dragon's Prophet delivers a high-quality, meaningful online experience at launch and beyond."

Sign up for the beta here, and check out the game's latest trailer and screens below.

I played the open Beta for about a month off and on - and it was spectacularly meh - pretty much made myself play it a couple of hours a week after the first week or so - it was something new when I was bored but that was about the best I can say.

I saw some videos of this game's beta, on MMOBomb and MMOHut and whatnot, and everyone just can't seem to help themselves compare it to Pokemon. In that, replace the Pokemon with Dragons and the charming world with traditional fantasy. It just makes me wish that SOE would develop their own monster-catching franchise now.

They do colorful, broadly appealing games ostensibly aimed towards children (but, of course, anyone can enjoy a title like Free Realms). So why not? Frickin' Gameloft will rip off Pokemon (Crystal Monsters), but you guys won't? It's not like Nintendo's going to do a Pokemon MMO... ever.

C'mon SOE. Not to mention, you could ALSO rip off Skylanders and sell action figures that would net you the monster in-game! You're literally ignoring a goldmine here, and a game that many, many, MANY gamers have wanted to see for YEARS now. Bring us a Monster-collecting/raising/battling MMO, please? SOMEONE? Carbine? Cryptic? How can no one have done this already? Seriously?

Oh well. I'll admit, the dragons here look pretty cool. This game could be worth some playtime for sure, especially since it's F2P.